The Kingdom of Heaven....

Hail to the Queen

The Netflix original series, The Crown, tells the story of the rise of Queen Elizabeth II. After the death of her father, King George VI, the young Elizabeth must take the throne as the new monarch. The show reveals the struggles she faces becoming queen and the impact it has on her marriage and children. To suddenly become royalty might seem like a dream to some people. But it should make us ask larger questions. What would you do if you had a kingdom? What would it look like? What values would guide it? It’s easy to think about being royalty, but if you were in charge would the world be better or worse? In order to have a kingdom, you have to have a monarch who reigns over all .

Focus of the Series

We will examine Jesus’s definition of the kingdom of God, and what these principles mean for believers today. As “people of the kingdom,” we must acknowledge God’s sovereignty over our lives, live with hope for the future, and align our will to his reign.

Propositional Statement

The kingdom of God has entered into this world with the ministry of Jesus, and Christians are a part of that kingdom. Essentially people of the kingdom are under the reign of God.

Matthew 13 in context

This chapter is the third of five discourses by Jesus recorded in Matthew. The time cues given by Matthew lead us to believe that Jesus spoke these things during a single teaching event. Several features make this chapter important but somewhat difficult to interpret. It features a new teaching method for Jesus (parables). It also falls in the center of Matthew’s Gospel and explains a major shift in the emphasis of the book from Jesus’ role as the sovereign ruling Son of David to that of the sacrificial redeeming Son of Abraham (Matt. 1:1). Furthermore, it reveals for the first time some critical truths that never appeared anywhere in the Old Testament.

Anticipating Christ’s coming death, resurrection, and ascension, Matthew 13 deals with the question, “What will happen to the kingdom when the rejected king goes back to heaven without having actually ruled over the earth?” To answer this question, Jesus used a somewhat unusual word in the Bible. He spoke of secrets and indicated he was revealing to his disciples truths hidden since the creation of the world (13:55). In the Bible, a mystery or secret is not something hard to understand, as we commonly use the word. Rather, it refers to a truth that was never revealed in the Old Testament but now is made plain in the New Testament. The apostle Paul defined it as truth “that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints” (Col 1:26 ).

Of course, the concept of kingdom “postponement” until a second coming only describes what it looks like from the human perspective. The kingdom is not postponed at all, but advances in a different form—the church. There is no delay in the advance of God’s purpose. Everything simply had not been revealed in the Old Testament. Human responsibility for the rejection of the Messiah-King and the “apparent postponement” of the kingdom stands, but in God’s sovereign all-knowing plan, there are no surprises. The death and resurrection of Christ are essential elements of the redemptive plan.

The Old Testament has revealed the earthly reign of Christ on the throne of David. But Matthew 13 introduces a different form of the kingdom—the spiritual reign of the king over his own servants while he is physically absent before his second coming. That is the secret—how his kingdom program will unfold in the period between his two advents, which is the subject of Matthew 13.

The word parable (parabole) comes from the combination of the verb ballo (“to throw, cast”) and the prefix para- (alongside). The idea is that placing two things sided by side for comparison. A parable uses something with which the learner is familiar from everyday life (farming, the market-place, fishing) and compares it with something that is unfamiliar (in this chapter, various realities about the kingdom of heaven). The student learns something about the unfamiliar by its similarity to the familiar.

What is the Kingdom of Heaven (God)

“The kingdom of God is a new manifestation of God’s power and sovereignty in which his nature, power, and will are brought to bear through teaching, preaching, and healing.” For Jesus, the kingdom of heaven was not a place, but God’s way of doing things under his rule and reign. The kingdom of heaven is mention eleven times just in Matthew 13 alone, suggesting the importance of this teaching concerning the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is now no longer that Old Testament kingdom promise to Israel, for that kingdom was an unrevealed secret. Jesus, through his parables provides a description of what is to be on the earth religiously after Israel’s rejection of the kingdom. The parables provide revelation of the present age to the end of the age, and they speak to Christendom, of the sphere of Christian profession. Jesus taught about the kingdom of heaven in parables, tucking a spiritual meaning in a practical story. The purpose of the parables pulls the veil back to reveal the kingdom of heaven (God).

In these parables, Jesus never describes the kingdom of heaven as a place, suggesting to the reader there is a difference between heaven and the kingdom of heaven (God). Jesus often tells his listeners that the kingdom of heaven was in them and it was present. Luke 17:21 The first four parables were public, while the last three were shared privately with the disciples. The first two parables are the key to the entire seven.

Luke 17:21 ESV

nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.”

Kingdom

Kingdom (basileia) - the domain over which a king rules. This word is theologically significant in the phrases kingdom of God and heaven, both referring to the reality of God’s rule over all creation. The “kingdom of God” is the central theme of the gospel message (Mark 1:15). The kingdom of God is proclaimed (Luke 16:16); it “comes upon” people (Luke 11:20) and comes “near” (Luke 21:31); it involves not mere “talk,” but rather “power” (1 Corinthians 4:20). The kingdom of God can be given to people by God, but it can also be taken away by God (Matthew 21:43). God’s sovereign kingdom is demonstrated as demons are cast out (Matthew 12:28) and as the sick are healed (Luke 10:19). The kingdom belongs to those who have submitted to the rule of God, recognizing their spiritual poverty (Matthew 5:3) and suffering persecution (Matthew 5:10). The mystery of the kingdom is extensively discussed in Matthew 13, where Jesus speaks of God’s rule as something that is good, expanding, treasured, and all encompassing.

Heaven

Heaven (ouranos) - the divine sphere from which God comes down. Heaven is sometimes thought to be used as a substitute for God in the phrase “kingdom of heaven.” Yet the NT shows no fear of using the name of God, and while heaven obviously relates to God, it may also help to define God’s lordship as that which comes down from heaven. Heaven, then, carries a reference to God’s saving work. God’s kingdom sets heaven in motion (Matthew 3:2) and breaks in from it. God’s throne is in heaven, or is heaven itself (Hebrews 8:1; Matthew 5:34). “Throne” here denotes government. The point is not that heaven is God’s location but that it expresses his absolute and inviolable lordship.

Planted in perilous times (13:24-30)

Matthew 13:24–30 ESV

He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, “Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.” ’ ”

In James K. A. Smith’s book How (Not) to be Secular, he says that:

“In a religion which is merely a weekly social event (apart, of course, from the normal pleasures of a weekly social event), as opposed to one which tells you exactly how to live, which colours and stains everything. The metaphor returns later: “What’s the point of faith unless you and it are serious — seriously serious — unless your religion fills, directs, stains and sustains your life?” If the young Barnes thought a God who cared about stains on his trousers couldn’t possibly exist, the older Barnes thinks the only religion worth embracing (and rejecting) is one that stains everything....Even as faith endures in our secular age, believing doesn’t come easy. Faith is fraught; confession is haunted by an inescapable sense of its contestability. We don’t believe instead of doubting; we believe while doubting. We’re all Thomas now” (pp. 3-4)

Jesus compares the kingdom of heaven to a man with a field that sowed good seed into his field, yet in the same field there is someone that is sowing “weeds” into ground they did not till. The verb likened to is in the present tense, describing the kingdom in the degree to which it has already been inaugurated. It means the kingdom has already been inaugurated has happened or developed. It means the kingdom has already been inaugurated. It indicates that God’s reign has already come in Jesus’ ministry, and was present at the time Jesus told the parable. It is used to introduce a more extended story with multiple characters. The kingdom is being compared to what happened in the situation or case or story of a man who planted good seed, not the man himself. Looking at Jesus’s first parable, one would think our secular culture has its own soil, the enemy has its own soil, and the church has its own soil. Yet here in this parable, there is just the one field where both good and bad are sowed. Attrition and time has tilled the soil of this culture where both good and bad grows, and there is nothing one can do to stop it.

Darnel, or the weed Jesus describes here is bearded, difficult to extinguish from wheat when the plants are young, and the roots of which entangle around the roots of the wheat plants. The bearded darnel is a host to a fungus that is poisonous to people or animals when eaten. It is a poisonous weed. The grains are poisonous. As Christians, never underestimate the adversary who shares the same field with you. One things to point out is the time when both sowed in the same field. The man has done his job properly. He was not careless in the sowing. He used good wheat seed. The situation is that both the disciples and non believers are working the same field, however, an enemy slipped in under cover of darkness and sowed weeds. The enemy works during the night when he will be unnoticed. Thus the appearance of the darnel is a mystery. This becomes important when one realizes that darnel represents evil or the Evil One. “There is not a separate field for faith seed and doubt seed.” Just as the wheat and weeds were often superficially similar in appearance and if sown too close to each other were too intermingled in their root systems to be pulled up separately, so too God’s people are sometimes outwardly hard to distinguish from his enemies. They can to be interconnected with them in society for anyone to try to purify the world from evil without hurting those who are good. Nevertheless, in Jesus’ society many Zealots, and at times even his disciples (Luke 9:54), were often eager for precisely this to happen. Jesus warns them they must wait for the final judgment.

“Weeds and wheat grow together, and yet there are specific instructions for both weeds and wheat.”

Jesus’ principle here applies in every age to the question of why God allows evil only through the judgment and re-creation of the universe at the end of the age because evil resides in every person. God’s delay in bringing the end of the world is thus entirely gracious, giving people more opportunity to repent (2 Peter 3:9). Jesus reserves an interpretation of the specific details of the passage for a more private audience with his disciples. But even without that interpretation, one may discern three stages to the story’s plot—the initial obstacles to the kingdom (27-28), the inauguration of the kingdom (28-30), and the final consummation of the kingdom (30). From the actions of the farmer and the fate of the wheat and weeds, one learns that God will permit the righteous and wicked to coexist in this age but that he will eventually separate the wicked, judge them, and destroy them, while gathering the righteous together to be rewarded by enjoying his presence forever. Why would removing the weeds uproot the grain? The roots of the weeds would be intertwined with the roots of the wheat, making it impossible

Possesses the ability impact and expand (13:31-32)

Matthew 13:31–32 ESV

He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”

Matthew The Parable of the Mustard Seed and the Yeast, 13:31–35

The familiar mustard seed parable has various interesting dimensions. In the first place, there is the saying in the Mishnah (m. Kil. 3.2) that warns never to plant a mustard seed in the garden. It was proverbial in that era that the mustard seed (whether we are dealing with white or black mustard is uncertain) was the smallest of all seeds (cf. Diodorus Siculus 1.35.2; Antigonus of Carystus 91). What Jesus is referring to here is a noxious bush that gobbles up space and will overrun other things in the garden, hence the warning against planting it. It becomes a large bush-like plant in which even birds or small animals can nest. It could attain a height of eight to ten feet (see b. Ketub. 111b). The reference to birds nesting is in fact an ironic allusion by Jesus to Daniel 4:21 where a beautiful tree is the subject, not a noxious bush. The contrast between small beginnings and a huge conclu-sion is intended to speak to the small beginnings of the Dominion in Jesus’ day, but also shares in the eschatological optimism in regard to what God has in store. It is possible that the birds in the branches are symbols of Gentiles coming home to roost in the Dominion once the bush gets big, but we cannot be sure of this (cf. Ezek 17:23; 31:6; Dan 4:9, 18).

Jesus compares the impact of the kingdom to the mustard seed, one of the smallest seeds, yet possessing the ability to grow up to a height of three meters (10 feet). He is describing the growth and expansion of the kingdom, which despite small and seemingly insignificant beginnings, brings great growth and results. A beginning that is unimpressive or almost imperceptible can result in a dramatic transformation [NICNT]. What looks insignificant to the world will fulfill God’s promises and will eventually triumph [NAC]. There is an organic unity between the kingdom’s small beginning and its final, mature state [EBC, ICC]. It also describes the fact that Christ’s rule comes into human hearts by something being implanted from outside the heart [NTC].

Matthew 1. The Polarization Explained: Kingdom Parables (13:1–52)

Jesus may be alluding to Ezek 17:23 (cf. Dan 4:12), in which the birds of the air nest in the branches of the mighty cedar tree (God’s kingdom in Israel). Even large mustard bushes pale in comparison with the lofty cedar; still Jesus may be employing deliberate irony. What may not look like much to the world will in fact fulfill all God’s promises.

David Abernathy, An Exegetical Summary of Matthew 1–16, Exegetical Summaries (Dallas, TX: SIL International, 2013), 494.

Matthew 1. The Polarization Explained: Kingdom Parables (13:1–52)

So too the tiny amounts of yeast a breadmaker mixes into a large batch of dough cause the whole loaf to rise. “Mixed” is literally hidden, but the expression is probably just a graphic description of the baking process and not to be allegorized. Again we see the remarkable pervasiveness of a small agent. “Large amount” reads, literally, three satas (variously estimated at twenty to forty-five liters), which could feed well over one hundred people. It is sometimes argued that yeast, often a metaphor in Jewish literature for the spreading influence of evil and used in this way by Jesus in 16:6, must also here refer to the growing opposition against him. But immediate context must always take precedence over background. Yeast can be a positive symbol (e.g., Lev 7:13–14; 23:17) and, with all the parables dealing with the growth of plants and seeds in this chapter having the positive referent of the growth of the kingdom, the parable of the yeast must almost certainly be taken this way too.

Together the parables of the mustard seed and leaven pair illustrations of typical male and female tasks of Jesus’ day and probably reflect his concern to relate well to women as well as men in his audience. Neither parable depicts the culmination of the kingdom so impressively as to justify grandiose dreams of Christianizing the earth, but each does caution against a defeatism or siege mentality when Christian witness seems temporarily ineffective. One day God’s causes will triumph.

A worthy Investment (13:44-45)

Matthew 13:44–45 ESV

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls,

Matthew 1. The Polarization Explained: Kingdom Parables (13:1–52)

Another pair of short similes or analogies follows (as in vv. 31–33). Again each contains one character and teaches one point, namely, that the kingdom is so valuable that it is worth sacrificing anything to gain it.

13:44 Jesus likens one who enters the kingdom to a man who sells everything he owns in order to buy a field containing a treasure that will more than compensate for his sacrifice. One should not worry about the man’s ethics in hiding the treasure. We need neither justify his behavior nor imitate it. This is simply part of the story line that helps to make sense of the plot. Jesus frequently tells parables in which unscrupulous characters nevertheless display some virtue from which Christians can learn (cf. esp. Luke 16:1–8; 18:1–8). Similarly, one must not interpret the buying of the treasure as an allegory for the atonement, as if Jesus were the treasure hunter purchasing our redemption. As in a similar rabbinic parable about Israel entering the promised land (Mek. Beshallach 2:142f.), the man who finds the treasure is more naturally seen as the person seeking after God’s blessings.

13:45–46 Jesus makes the same point by describing a merchant who purchases a costly pearl. Again the man gives up everything to obtain his treasure. Sometimes God calls would-be disciples literally to sell all (19:21), but they must always abandon anything that would stand in the way of wholehearted allegiance to Christ and the priorities of the kingdom. Interestingly, in the parable of the pearl the man is searching for wealth, whereas in the parable of the hidden treasure the man stumbles across it. As with the parables of mustard seed and leaven, Jesus is reaching out to every person in his audience. He calls the spiritual seeker as well as the apathetic atheist.

Matthew Hidden Treasures and Net Gain, 13:44–50

Here again a comparative mechanism begins the parable to let us know: (1) this is a metaphor, not an exact literal description and so (2) the two things being compared are not assumed to be alike in all respects. Indeed they are only alike in one or two ways. When children are small they often read tales of buried treasure. Here is such a tale. With the economic and political uncertainties of the first century AD, it was not unusual to bury one’s valuables in a jar in the field. Jeremias suggests that this is what Jesus has in mind here, a jar with jewels in it, in a field that belongs to the owner of the jewels.19 Consider the example of the copper scroll at Qumran found in the ground.

The story envisions someone finding a treasure, reburying it, going out and selling all they had, and buying the field. Later rab-binic law was clear on this point. If you bought a field, you also bought the contents that were found in the field. You will notice that the man in question is not a thief. He leaves the treasure in the field until he can buy the field and the treasure becomes his. This parable means for us not only to sense the great worth of finding the Dominion but also the great joy involved in doing so. Possibly there is also a secondary theme about the Dominion’s hiddenness, requiring a diligent search to find it. When one finds the Dominion, all else seems valueless or at least of much less worth and so expendable if that is what it takes to get the treasure. No sacrifice is too great to obtain it.

There is evidence that Jesus told parables in pairs, using them as two ways of speaking about the same sort of truth or the same truth. One story would hit one person in the audience, and another would ring true for another person. So then the parable that follows in vv. 45–46 is a twin of the treasure parable. In this story the person involved is a trader, one who will recognize the great worth of such a pearl when he finds it. Unlike the previous parable the trader is seeking the object. We are told he found an expensive pearl. [Pearl]